Karen Smith apparently conducts a poll through her blog, DIGITAL STORYTELLING — The home of e-folklore (the blog’s purpose is to “link together useful digital storytelling resources”), in which she discovered a 120 percent gain in the number of digital storytellers from last year to this year. Smith also reports a 200+ percent gain in digital-storytelling awareness. Smith notes that most of those polled who describe themselves as digital story “viewers” expressed interest in creating their own digital stories.
I was especially interested in — and perhaps a bit surprised by — the reasons for creating digital stories that Smith gleaned from her blog’s readers (I’m not sure if the order of these has any significance):
- family memories
- extraordinary events
- deep sorrow (e.g., death of a loved one)
- deep love (e.g., first kiss)
- business improvement (e.g., organizational conference focus)
- personal improvement through digital portfolio (e.g., the story of my career)
- love of pets
- personal expression (e.g., poetry)
- professional writing in multi-media for business
- news release (e.g., family news and events)
Most of the references to digital storytelling I see are in the context of either education or journalism. I guess that’s why the above list surprises me; most of the listed reasons for creating digital stories don’t fall into either category.
Smith’s poll affirms my belief that digital storytelling will continue to grow and will become increasingly important in the world of applied storytelling. It will also play a key role in the transformation of newspaper journalism and will continue to make inroads in the classroom.
I have a number of theories about the reasons behind the growth of digital storytelling — and applied storytelling in general, but one of them is simply that we have increasing numbers and types of technological tools to help tell these stories.
I still think of digital storytelling as slightly peripheral to my direct storytelling interests — or perhaps as a topical stream that runs parallel to applied storytelling. Digital storytelling isn’t so much a genre or form of applied storytelling as it is a medium for rendering storytelling. What do others think?
[Above illustration taken from http://dc-mrg.english.ucsb.edu/gradconf.html]
Addendum [added 12-29]: For those interested in getting into digital storytelling, the KQED Digital Storytelling Initiative offers a no-cost manual for download, The Art, Skill, Craft, and Magic of Digital Storytelling: A How-Come, How-To Guide, 2008 Edition, broken into chapters to download separately.
Another Addendum [added 01-16]: Another resource is an article in PDF from EduCause, 7 Things You Should Know About Digital Storytelling, 2008 Edition.
Agree : digital storytelling is a tool, a vehicle but not the message.
I think you comments re: digital storytelling running parallel to oral/traditional formats is exactly on target. All of these otherwise excellent art forms do themselves a disfavor by labeling themselves as “storytelling” instead of finding other ways to describe their work. They may all include aspects of storytelling and may indeed convey a story, but they are not storytelling. Storytelling is the foundation upon which these digital art forms are built. Great post, thanks.
Sean Director http://www.seantells.com
I think you comments re: digital storytelling running parallel to oral/traditional formats is exactly on target. All of these otherwise excellent art forms do themselves a disfavor by labeling themselves as “storytelling” instead of finding other ways to describe their work. They may all include aspects of storytelling and may indeed convey a story, but they are not storytelling. Storytelling is the foundation upon which these digital art forms are built. Great post, thanks.
Sean Director http://www.storyteller.net